Category: <span>Banking</span>

The New Development Bank of the Brics Group has on Thursday approved a $1 billion loan to the South African government to help with economic recovery due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This comes as the country battles record unemployment of around 32.5%. The New Development Bank said in a statement on Thursday that the loan would support...

Digital payments giant Stripe on Tuesday announced the opening of an office in United Arab Emirates financial capital Dubai, its first expansion into the Middle East region. The company was founded in 2010 by entrepreneurs and Irish brothers Patrick and John Collison, Stripe is used by more than 50 companies, each processing over $1 billion...

The South African Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee has opted to keep the repo rate at 3.5%, which means that the prime lending rate stays at 7%. Reserve Bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago also updated growth forecasts, saying that first quarter GDP growth was likely to fall short of the central bank’s January prediction. The good...

Nedbank’s headline profit declined by almost 57% to R5.4 billion in the past year. In the first six months of the year, its profit was down more than 69%.  The bank said that it assisted clients with cashflow relief of more than R120bn of loans during “peak Covid stress”. “Pleasingly clients have been able to...

Standard Bank declared a final dividend of 240 cents per share  for the 2020 financial year. The bank reported a 43% plunge in headline earnings to R15.9 billion from a previous R28.2 billion. Its personal and business banking unit was the hardest hit, with headline earnings declining 61% to R6.3 billion. The group said the...

FirstRand became the first banking group to declare a dividend after the SA Reserve Bank’s Prudential Authority lifted its effective ban on dividends last month. The group – which owns First National Bank (FNB), RMB and Wesbank – reported a 20% fall in its half-year headline profit (to R11.1 billion). “Since June 2020, earnings have recovered faster than expected...

Twitter and Square Co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey has launched his own bank, Square Financial Services. The bank begins its banking operations this week. According to the company’s statement, the operations comes after completing the charter approval process with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Utah Department of Financial Institutions. Square Financial Services...

Insurance Group Discovery Limited reported a 10% drop in interim profit for the six months ended 31 December. It fell to R1.875 billion from R2.078 billion for the previous half-year period. Discovery founder and group CEO Adrian Gore says, their group earnings were negatively impacted by exchange rate volatility but Covid-19 provisions resilient.  Exchange rate volatility...

Capitec Bank every year the beginning of March update its bank fees. This year the bank kept digital banking fees unchanged while reducing others. “We update our bank fees on 1 March every year. For 2021, we’ve kept most of our digital banking fees the same and reduced others, so you can bank and save...

TymeBank, a South African digital bank, announced today that it has secured an R1.6 billion (~$109 million) investment from new investors in the UK and Philippines. The company made this known via a statement. This investment will be used to bolster TymeBank’s growth and drive its commercial expansion across the country. However, this investment will...